As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 9th of July, 2020, what is certain for now under the new Croatian Government is that Zdravko Maric will remain at the head of state finances, Vili Beros will continue to lead the health care system, as will Davor Bozinovic with the police, and Oleg Butkovic should remain at the head of the Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure ministry.
The maths at the minute reads as follows: Closer to 16 than to 12, but most likely 15.
Although Plenkovic doesn’t want to come out with the precise number of ministries that will exist under the new Croatian Government yet, Vecernji list has learned that it could eventually have exactly 15 ministers. They are still talking and agreeing on things.
”The Prime Minister will decide who will stay, and who will go, he’s the selector,” Butkovic said using his football-style vocabulary on the eve of the meeting of the cabinet of the Government. Asked if his department was one of those intended for ”merging”, he was surprised.
”With what? When it’s already too big, we’re already connected,” said the minister who “covers” road construction, telecommunications, maritime affairs and transport. What has not yet been merged, and will most likely be, is state property and energy, which should be annexed to the Ministry of Economy, all under the leadership of Tomislav Coric.
”Different options for mergers and acquisitions have been mentioned, we’ve announced a reduction in the number of ministries and we’ll implement that, and what is important in all these reductions is that the functionality is equal or greater,” said yesterday Josip Aladrovic, whose Labour Ministry should be annexed under social policy.
As Vecernji list finds out, Aladrovic is also one of the ministers who should take over a larger scope of work, and he himself said that it is quite normal at the European level to merge departments that deal with the aforementioned issues.
”It’s important that the ministries that remain, or the new ones that will be created, are all functional and that we show the public that our public administration and the Government can be equally functional or more functional than before with a smaller number of ministers,” said Aladrovic.
Mario Banozic, the ”first man” of state property, was still on the same track, saying that nobody was born to be a minister. He explained that he was ready to be left without a ministry, while Goran Grlic Radman, who is in charge of foreign and European affairs, said that he was “serving the homeland”.
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